1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to dynamic downloading of hyper-text electronic mail messages.
2. Description of Related Art
Electronic mail is a technique in which messages are composed by a sender, sent from a sending computer, received and stored at a receiving computer, and ultimately presented to a recipient; the sending computer and the receiving computer may be the same computer, or may be different computers which are coupled together using a computer network or other communication link. For example, an operator may use a workstation for composing electronic mail messages and to couple that workstation to the sending computer for sending those electronic mail messages, and to couple the workstation to the receiving computer for receiving electronic mail messages and to use the workstation for reviewing those electronic mail messages.
One problem which has arisen in the art is that it can take substantial time to transmit an electronic mail message from the workstation to the sending computer (herein called “uploading” the message) or to transmit an electronic mail message from the receiving computer to the workstation (herein called “downloading” the message). This problem is particularly acute when the electronic mail message is laden with data or graphics, when the communication link (between the workstation and the sending computer or between the workstation and the receiving computer) has relatively low communication bandwidth, or when there are many electronic mail messages to be transmitted. The operator of the workstation perceives substantial transmission time as excessive latency in uploading or downloading electronic mail messages.
One method has been to transmit only a part of the electronic mail message for presentation to the operator, such as a header for the message or a first screen display for the message, and to require the operator to request more of the electronic mail message before the remainder is transmitted for presentation. Although this method allows the operator to review at least part of the electronic mail message relatively quickly, it suffers from the drawback that the operator must be present at the workstation to request further information and thus to cause the electronic mail message to be fully transmitted for presentation.
A variant of this method is to transmit the entire electronic mail message for immediate presentation to the operator, but to allow the operator to interrupt the transfer, such as with a flow control character, if it is desired to perform another task. Although this method also allows the operator to review at least part of the electronic mail message relatively quickly, it suffers from the drawback that the operator must review only a single electronic mail message at a time, and therefore must wait the full latency for downloading a first electronic mail message before reviewing any part of a second electronic mail message.
An aspect of the problem which has arisen in the art is that electronic mail messages are linear sequences of characters, while it is often desirable to transmit information which is organized other than linearly. For example, it is often desirable to transmit information organized as hypertext, such as information presented using HTML (hypertext markup language) or related description languages, and capable of being transmitted using the HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) or related protocols. When information is so organized, presenting information in the electronic mail message in the order it is transmitted will often be contrary to the purposes of the both the sender and recipient. Rather, the operator will wish to review portions of the electronic mail message in a different order from the order it is transmitted by the sender to the recipient.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a technique for downloading electronic mail messages which allows an operator to review at least portions of those electronic mail messages without waiting to download the entire electronic mail message. This advantage is achieved by a method and system according to the present invention in which electronic mail messages and portions thereof are presented to an operator at a workstation while other electronic mail messages or other portions of the same electronic mail message are dynamically downloaded in one or more background tasks and held in storage for later presentation.